2020 Fiscal Year Research-status Report
African American Fiction and Fictions of the Founding Fathers
| Project/Area Number |
20K00459
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| Research Institution | Kansai University |
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Principal Investigator |
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| Project Period (FY) |
2020-04-01 – 2023-03-31
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| Keywords | African American / Founding Fathers / US Constitution / Afro-pessimism |
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| Outline of Annual Research Achievements |
Over the past year, I have written one essay, “Translating Diversity from Ralph Ellison to Kenzaburo Oe,” which is under submission to an academic journal in the US, and co-authored another, “Ralph Ellison and African American Literature in Post-World-War-II Japan: Making Blackness Visible,” for a collection that is supposed to come out at the end of this year. In early May, I gave an online talk, “Migrating and Settling Down: Thinking Beyond the Rhizome,” at the EAAS Conference in Warsaw, Poland, and in mid-June, I will give another online talk, “Property in Toni Morrison’s Paradise” at the Venice World Multidisciplinary Conference on Republics and Republicanism in Venice, Italy. Aside from these papers, my research has essentially focused on gathering and reading material for an ambitious book project at the crossroads of African American culture, critical race theory, and political science. I have read a substantial number of articles in PDF format as well as books about the subject. So far, I have written over 28,000 words (about 90 pages), which means that the book is halfway through. This first half, which explores the evolution of African American thought over two centuries through the writings of Frederick Douglass, William Edward Burghardt Du Bois, and Saidiya Hartman has helped me refine my approach and offer an innovative look at the evolution of African American self-representation and the recent impact of Afro-pessimism.
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| Current Status of Research Progress |
Current Status of Research Progress
3: Progress in research has been slightly delayed.
Reason
My research project is a bit behind for two main reasons. First, I had to work on side projects to which I had committed before I was awarded a Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C). However, these essays and talks that I had to work on are not unrelated to my research, and therefore, it was time well spent. Second, the COVID-19 pandemic has generated all sorts of problems that have slowed me down in my research: some books that I ordered were never delivered, and some colleagues I was supposed to interact with were not available as Covid had a significant impact on their lives. I expect things to get back to normal for everyone very soon.
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| Strategy for Future Research Activity |
I am planning to be able to be back on schedule in the coming year. My priority is to complete the first draft of my book so that I can send it for review to potential publishers in the US and the UK. To do so, I want to do several key readings this summer and then begin to write the second half of my book in the Fall. Pending the end of the COVID-19 pandemic, I also mean to invite major scholars from both the United States and Europe. For instance, I am thinking of inviting Professor Lloyd Pratt (University of Oxford) whose work _The Strangers Book: The Human of African American Literature_ (2010) significantly overlaps with my research and would be of the utmost interest to my colleagues in Japan. I have been in touch with Professor Pratt who is willing to come to Japan as soon as international traveling is safe again. Before this becomes possible, I have a Sisyphean task to accomplish. As I hinted in the “Summary of Research Achievements” section above, my interest in the complex new political trend of Afro-pessimism requires that I expand my theoretical background in that particular field, especially as I intend to question the tenets of Afro-pessimism. As the Afro-pessimist corpus is particularly dense and challenging, I plan to write small critical paragraphs as I proceed with my reading so that it will be easier to organize my ideas and speed up the writing of my book by the beginning of the Fall. This way, I am hoping to make up for lost time.
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| Causes of Carryover |
I could not put my grant money to good use because of the COVID-19 pandemic. I was supposed to travel to Warsaw, and then to Venice, for conferences but these conferences became online conferences for safety reasons. Also because of the pandemic, I could not invite international scholars to come and give a talk in Japan. Finally, I could not travel for research.
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